Systems, Methods, and Machine Readable Programs for Controlling a Water Utility System Responsive to Observed Acoustic Emission

1. A computer-implemented method for controlling one or more components of a water utility system, the water utility system including at least one pump assembly, the method comprising: receiving a user indication indicative of a user-perceived acoustic-noise induced discomfort experienced at least at a first location that is in a remote location with respect to the location of the at least one pump assembly, the received user indication comprising at least one of a user indication of a degree of the user-perceived acoustic-noise induced discomfort and a user indication of an attribute of an acoustic noise causing the user-perceived acoustic-noise induced discomfort; measuring at least a first sound signal at said first location where the acoustic-noise induced discomfort has been perceived by the user; determining, based on the measured first sound signal, the received user indication, and a received first operational parameter of the at least one pump assembly, the first operational parameter being representative of an operational condition of the at least one pump assembly at the time of said measuring the first sound signal, one or more adjusted control parameters of the water utility system, wherein determining comprises determining correlations between the received first operational parameter of the at least one pump assembly and the measured first sound signal; and controlling the water utility system based on the determined adjusted control parameters by adjusting an operational condition of the at least one pump assembly.

2. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising receiving a user indication indicative of a user-perceived change of the noise discomfort experienced at least at the first location.

3. A computer-implemented method according to claim 2, further comprising repeating the measuring, obtaining, determining and controlling responsive to the received user indication.

4. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising obtaining at least the first operational parameter, and wherein determining the one or more adjusted control parameters of the water utility system includes processing the measured first sound signal and said obtained first operational parameter to determine a correlation between the operational condition and the measured first sound signal and determining the one or more adjusted control parameters of the water utility system based on said processing.

5. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising measuring at least a second sound signal at said first location subsequent to said measuring the first sound signal, wherein determining the one or more adjusted control parameters of the water utility system is further based on the measured second sound signal.

6. A computer-implemented method according to claim 5, further comprising obtaining at least one second operational parameter of the at least one pump assembly representative of an operational condition of the at least one pump assembly at the time of said measuring the second sound signal, wherein determining the one or more adjusted control parameters of the water utility system is further based on the measured second sound signal and on said obtained second operational parameter.

7. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising measuring at least one additional sound signal at a second location, different from the first location, wherein determining the one or more adjusted control parameters of the water utility system is further based on the measured additional sound signal.

8. A computer-implemented method according to claim 7, further comprising obtaining at least one supplemental operational parameter of the at least one pump assembly representative of an operational condition of the at least one pump assembly at the time of said measuring the additional sound signal, wherein determining the one or more adjusted control parameters of the water utility system is further based on the measured additional sound signal and on said obtained supplemental operational parameter.

9. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein receiving a user indication includes receiving a descriptive characterization of the user-perceived noise discomfort and wherein at least one of processing and the determining is based on the received descriptive characterization.

10. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the determining is based at least in part on stored data indicative of known correlations between operational conditions and sound signals.

11. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein determining is based on at least one of a decision tree, an expert system, and a machine learning algorithm.

12. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the first operational parameter includes one or more of a pump speed, a valve setting, a voltage, and a frequency.

13. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, further comprising determining at least a first set of adjusted control parameters and a second set of adjusted control parameters; and wherein controlling includes selecting one of the first and second sets of control parameters conditioned on one or more of a user input, a time of day, a day of week, and an operational state of the water supply system.

14. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein a first control parameter includes one or more of a pump speed, a valve setting, a voltage, and a frequency.

15. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the water utility system includes two or more pump assemblies, and wherein the method further comprises obtaining respective operational parameters from each of the pump assemblies and wherein determining adjusted control parameters includes determining adjusted control parameters for at least one of said pump assemblies.

16. A computer-implemented method according to claim 15, wherein determining adjusted control parameters includes determining adjusted control parameters for at least two of said pump assemblies.

17. A data processing system configured to perform the acts of the method according to claim 1.

18. A water utility system comprising at least one pump assembly and a data processing system according to claim 17.

19. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program configured to cause a data processing system to perform the acts of the computer-implemented method according to claim 1.

20. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the first location is a location of a mobile electronic device being operated by the user.

21. A computer implemented method according to claim 20, further comprising instructing the user to move a microphone of the mobile electronic device to the first location.

22. A method according to claim 1, wherein determining the correlations comprises determining a correlation between a change of the measured sound signal over time and a corresponding change of the operational parameter and/or the degree of the perceived noise over time.

23. A method according to claim 1, wherein determining the one or more adjusted control parameters comprises processing the measured first sound signal to extract one or more features of the first sound signal, mapping the extracted one or more features to one or more classes of noise based on a classification of the noise by the source of noise and/or by the type of noise, and mapping the one or more classes of noise to which the extracted features have been mapped to one or more candidate control parameters to be adjusted.

24. A method according to claim 1, further comprising computing one or more metrics and/or signatures of the first sound signal and feeding the computed metrics/signature into a computational model implementing a control strategy.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user-perceived acoustic-noise induced discomfort experienced at the first location includes a resonance noise created by resonant coupling between the at least one pump assembly and a water utility system or building structural component that is mechanically coupled to the at least one pump assembly.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user-perceived acoustic-noise induced discomfort experienced at the first location is dependent on a rotational speed of the pump of the at least one pump assembly.